ALERT: SINGAPORE'S CIRCUIT BREAKER MEASURES HAVE BEEN EXTENDED FOR FOUR MORE WEEKS AND WILL END ON JUNE FIRST, 2020.
PM Lee delivered a public address with his Task Force today at 1700 hours regarding the extension of the circuit breaker. The main components of his speech were the following:
(1) Only most essential services will remain open
(2) All Singaporeans must stay home, do their part and practice safe-distancing
(3) PM Lee recognises many people will be disappointed but we must unite and overcome this crisis as "one people"
(4) PM Lee told everyone that the vaccine will take a while and that we need to take health into our own hands: Singapore needs to develop their own test kits to enable more aggressive testing policies; these testing policies are what enabled the government to detect so many confirmed cases
(5) Singapore will slowly open when daily cases drop: they will follow the precedent of New Zealand and Germany meaning that there will be opening in small, incremental steps in order to ensure public health and safety
(6) He is encouraging all to download TraceTogether to allow better contact tracing; everyone needs to cooperate and other apps are also being developed now
PM Lee also alluded to some hidden reservoir of cases that may be present in society as there have been many cases which have not been linked to known clusters as of yet. The exponential increase in cases worry all so this is why we needed to extend the CB.
There was also emphasis on that if community cases begin to drop, the government will begin to make changes and things may begin to reopen.
Regarding the foreign worker dormitories, PM Lee said that the government does care about the migrant workers the same way that they care about Singaporeans. This is why the government is now stepping up the medical resources in the dormitories! The following measures will now be undertaken in dormitories as cross-infections can occur when the workers may move around:
(1) All workers must stay in their dormitories. Even essential workers; this applies to all workers no matter what
(2) All major dorms supported by dedicated teams of doctors and nurses (3) The government will work with the companies to ensure the workers are still being paid
The PM concluded his address by saying: we are Singapore and we will get through this crisis united.
** this article will be edited and revised over time to add more details